GIFT  OF 


MODERN  POLAND 


LUDWIK  EHRLICH 


[Reprint  from  tiie  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  CHRONICLE,  Vol.  XIX,  No.  2) 


MODERN  POLAND* 


LUDWIK  EHRLICH 

Like  every  one  of  you,  I  have,  since  the  earliest  days  of 
childhood,  cherished  a  great  number  of  wishes  and  desires, 
some  of  which  perhaps  appear  at  the  present  moment  very 
childish,  while  others  are  more  sublime.  One  of  the 
earliest  wishes  that  I  remember  was  the  wish  to  grow  up. 
The  wish  that  followed  next  was  to  be  a  street-car  conduc- 
tor, and  after  that  to  be  a  drayman.  In  quick  succession  I 
wanted  to  be  a  corporal,  and  from  that  it  was  only  one 
step  to  wishing  to  be  a  general.  Then  I  started  dreaming 
of  more  important  things.  There  was  a  time  when  I  was 
dreaming  of  beautiful  girls,  there  was  a  time  when  I  wanted 
to  improve  the  world  and  do  away  with  sin  and  crime  and 
poverty.  And  there  was  a  time  wjpn  I  wanted  to  do  research 
work  and  to  be  a  scholar.  But  at  all  times  ever  since  I 
remember,  there  has  been  one  wish  cherished  as  earnestly 
as  any — more  than  any.  It  was  the  wish  to  serve  Poland. 
However  little  I  might  do  in  that  service,  I  wanted  to  serve 
her.  And  although  you  will  realize  that  during  the  life  of  a 
Pole  there  are  not  many  moments  of  real  happiness,  yet  this 
is  such  a  moment.  For  after  having  addressed  during  this 
war  several  audiences  in  different  parts  of  England  on  the 
subject  of  Poland,  and  after  having  had  the  privilege 
of  lecturing  before  the  University  of  Oxford  on  the 

*  An  address  delivered  at  the  University  of  California  on  March 
5,  1917. 


3610^ 


history  of  Poland,  I  am  now  fortunate  enough  to  address 
this  university,  one  of  the  foremost  universities  in 
America,  on  what  is  so  dear  to  my  heart.  And  to  ad- 
dress you  on  the  subject,  to  try  to  inform  you  about  Poland, 
is  to  try  to  serve  Poland,  because  the  very  thing  that  Poland 
wants  is  that  people  should  know  more  about  her.  Since 
Poland  was  divided,  was  cut  into  pieces,  at  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  ever  so  many  calumnies  have  been 
spread  about  her.  If  you  met  anyone  outside  of  Poland 
who  had  heard  about  her,  as  likely  as  not  he  would  have 
heard  things  which  on  mere  consideration  would  prove  to 
be  false.1  But  still  those  are  the  things  you  have  heard. 
To  call  your  attention  to  Poland  is  to  serve  her,  and  to 
be  allowed  to  address  an  audience  like  this  is  an  oppor- 
tunity. I  am  obliged  to  you,  Professor  Noyes,  for  giving 
me  this  opportunity,  and  I  am  obliged  to  this  audience  for 
having  come  to  hear  me. 

The  Polish  question  is  a  very  curious  one.  You  may 
know,  or  perhaps  you  may  not  know,  that  people  have 
asserted  again  and  again  that  the  Polish  question  did  not 
exist.  Fifty  years  ago  that  great  charlatan,  Thomas  Car- 
lyle,  said  that  the  Polish  question  was  "a  thing  dead  and 
buried. ' '  And  today  Carlyle  's  teaching  is  dead  and  buried, 
and  the  Polish  question  is  as  much  alive  as  ever.  Not  many 
years  ago,  Prince  von  Builw,  sometime  Chancellor  of  Ger- 
many (until  1908),  after  having  resigned  that  position 
wrote  a  book,  which  has  been  translated  into  English  under 
the  title  Imperial  Germany.  He  is  reported  to  be  play- 
ing an  important  diplomatic  role  even  during  the  present 
war,  and  hence  his  words  are  all  the  more  characteristic  of 
the  German  attitude.  He  said  in  his  book: 

(The)  object  ...  of  our  policy  ...  is  a  fight  for  German  nation- 
ality  The  task  of  solving  this  problem  would  probably  have  been 

easier  for  the  Prussians  and  for  the  Poles  if  the  artificial  and  un- 
tenable Grand  Duchy  of  Warsaw,  created  by  Napoleon,  had  not 


i  Many  old  falsehoods  are  disproved  in  Dr.  Lord 's  brilliant  book 
on  the  Second  Partition  of  Poland  (Harvard  University  Press,  1915), 
based  on  the  deepest  research. 


roused  in  the  Poles  the  vain  hope  that  in  the  course  of  European 
complications  it  might  be  possible  to  re-establish  Polish  indepen- 
dence. The  Poles  would  very  likely  have  been  spared  painful  experi- 
ences on  our  side  as  well  as  on  the  other  side  of  the  frontier  in  1830, 
1848,  and  1863,  if  the  memory  of  the  ephemeral  creation  of  a  state  by 
the  first  Napoleon  had  not  lived  in  their  hearts.  The  thought  that 
the  partition  of  the  Polish  Eepublic  among  the  Eastern  Powers  from 
1793  to  1807  had  only  been  temporary,  naturally  made  it  harder  for 
the  Poles ...  to  regard  the  accomplished  facts  as  final.2 

Yes,  we  did  regard  the  accomplished  facts  as  not  final. 
As  much  as  we  could,  we  did  stick  to  our  belief,  expressed 
in  the  song  to  which  no  Pole  ever  listens  sitting,  the  song, 
" Poland  Is  Not  Yet  Lost." 

And  when  this  war  broke  out,  within  a  few  weeks  we 
had  a  declaration  from  the  Russian  commander-in-chief, 
a  declaration  that  the  partition  of  Poland  had  been  a  great 
wrong.  And  now  you  see  all  the  three  powers  declaring 
that  each  one  of  them  is  going  to  give  Poland  happiness,  to 
restore  Poland.  The  Polish  question  is  not  dead;  it  is  not 
buried. 

"t"Tf  you  speak  of  Poland  today,  you  may  mean  any  one 
of  four  things.  First  of  all,  you  may  mean  the  old  empire, 
the  empire  as  it  existed  in  1772,  the  empire  which  had  been 
created  by  the  union  between  the  Kingdom  of  Poland  and 
the  Grand  Duchy  of  Lithuania^  In  1772  Poland  extended 
from  a  point  near  Berlin  almost  to  Kief,  and  reached  very 
close  to  the  Black  Sea. 

Secondly,  you  may  mean  by  Poland,  not  the  whole  of 
Poland,  but  only  what  is  usually  called  the  Congress-king- 
dom, that  is,  the  kingdom  created  by  the  Congress  of 
Vienna  in  1815,  the  part  which  is  now  usually  referred  to 
as  Russian  Poland.  The  Congress  of  Vienna  in  1815  took 
away  from  Prussia  part  of  what  had  been  assigned  to  her 
in  1795  and  formed  this  into  what  is  now  called  Poland, 
that  is  to  say,  Russian  Poland. 

2  Von  Biilow,  Imperial  Germany,  trans.  Lewenz,  7th  impression, 
1914,  252-253. 


BALTIC 


RUSSIA 


aj 

2J  TO  AUSTRIA 


2. \  JoPWSSJA 


Partitions  of  Poland,  1772-1795. 


Poland,  1914. 


Thirdly,  Poland  might  perhaps  mean  ethnographic 
Poland — that  is,  Poland  as  mentioned  in  the  proclamation 
of  Grand  Duke  Nicholas,  in  August,  1914.  He  promised  to 
Poland  freedom  of  language  and  religion  and  self-govern- 
ment. He  meant,  it  was  afterward  explained,  not  the  en- 
tire Poland  of  1772,  but  only  ethnographic  Poland,  only 
those  regions  in  which  the  Poles  formed  the  real  majority, 
that  territory  corresponding  with  the  ancient  Kingdom  of 
Poland,  comprising  Silesia,  but  distinguished  from  the 
Grand  Duchy  of  Lithuania. 

And  fourthly,  Poland  may  mean  not  a  territory,  but 
the  Poland  which  is  found  in  the  hearts  of  the  Polish 
people.  There  are  at  present  something  like  twenty-three 
million  of  Poles.  Of  that  number,  not  quite  twenty  mil- 
lion live  on  their  own  territory.  The  rest  are  dispersed; 
some  of  them  were  forced  to  leave  their  country,  some  have 
left  it  voluntarily,  waiting  for  better  times.  There  are  in 
Prussia  three  or  four  million  Poles.  In  Berlin  alone,  there 
are  one  hundred  thousand;  in  Austria,  nearly  five  million; 
in  Russian  Poland,  over  nine  million  Poles;  and  in  other 
parts  of  Russia  over  two  million.3 

As  to  religion  there  are  many  Roman  Catholics,  but  the 
Poles  are  by  no  means  exclusively  Roman  Catholic.  There 
are  numerous  Protestants,  some  of  whom  have  attained  to 
very  high  positions.  For  instance,  in  recent  years  the 
president  of  the  Polish  party  in  the  Viennese  Parliament 
was-  the  president  of  the  City  of  Cracow,  a  Protestant,  and 
another  Protestant,  Professor  Buzek,  has  been  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  most  patriotic  district  of  the  City  of  Lwow 
(Lemberg).  You  find  among  the  Poles  a  good  many  Jews. 
Now,  some  Jews  do  not  consider  themselves  Poles.  Some 
do,  and  in  certain  cases  they  have  given  such  good  proofs 
of  being  good  Poles  that  they  are  considered  in  the  fight 
for  Polish  freedom  as  important  as  any  other  Poles.  It 
only  depends  upon  the  way  in  which  they  behave  to  the 
Poles.  You  find  among  the  Poles  even  Mohammedans,  who 


Millions  of  Poles  live  abroad,  mostly  in  America. 


have  not  given  up  their  religion,  but  still  are  very  good 
Poles  indeed. 

These  are  some  bald  preliminary  remarks  about  Poland. 
I  shall  now  speak  of  the  conditions  of  life.  Poland  is  so 
vast  that  you  can  find  any  number  of  different  landscapes. 
You  find  fertile  plains  in  the  southeast,  the  part  from 
which  I  come,  in  Western  and  Central  Poland.  You  find 
very  rich  coal  mines  in  Silesia,  in  Galicia,  and  in  Russian 
Poland;  very  rich  oil  fields  in  Galicia;  you  find  very  pic- 
turesque and  beautiful  mountains.  The  port  of  Dantzig 
is  the  old  Polish  port  of  Gdansk;  the  shore  of  the  Baltic 
is  very  rich  in  vegetation.  And  there  would  be  everything 
to  make  people  happy  if  it  were  not  for  the  political  con- 
ditions. 

What  are  these  conditions?  Let  us  first  take  Austria. 
From  the  time  when  Galicia  first  came  under  Austrian  rule 
till  1867,  there  was  much  oppression.  There  were  attempts 
to  Germanize  the  country,  to  incite  fratricidal  struggles 
between  the  peasants  and  the  other  classes.  There  were 
actual  cases,  in  1846,  when  Austrian  officials  paid  peasants 
to  do  violence  to  the  persons  of  Polish  landlords.4  Galicia 
was  swamped  with  foreign  officials  who  did  not  understand 
the  language  of  the  inhabitants.  None  of  them  cared  for 
the  country.  They  wanted  only  to  take  advantage  of  the 
people.  Things  have  changed  since  1867.  They  changed, 
because  in  the  wars  of  1859  and  1866  the  old  administration 
of  Austria  broke  down  and  the  government  had  to  com- 
promise. They  compromised,  first  of  all,  with  a  very  strong 
party — the  Polish  party.  Thereafter,  in  Galicia,  the  Poles 
were  allowed,  not  privileges,  but  a  measure  of  self-govern- 
ment. In  certain  things  and  in  a  measure  only.  However, 
taking  advantage  of  this  change,  we  have  established 
schools  at  a  rate  which  I  think  must  seem  astonishing  to 
all  outsiders.  I  have  read,  for  instance,  the  report  of  an 
English  official,  sent  about  ten  or  fifteen  years  ago  to  in- 
vestigate our  system  of  schools.  He  could  not  find  words 

4  Treitschke,  DeutscJie  Geschichte,  ed.  5,  v.  545. 


to  express  his  admiration  for  the  way  in  which  Galician 
schools,  especially  those  at  Lwow,  were  administered. 
Within  fifty  years  the  number  of  school  children  had  risen 
from  something  like  180,000 — I  am  quoting  these  figures 
from  memory — in  the  'sixties,  to  over  a  million.  The 
Polish  and  the  Ruthenian  languages  were  recognized  as 
languages  which  might  be  used  in  offices  and  schools.  Of 
course,  German  has  retained  its  privileges.  It  is  still  one 
of  the  official  languages,5  even  if  no  Germans  live  in  the 
district  in  question. 

The  chief  difficulty  has  been,  apart  from  the  general 
incompetence  of  Austrian  administration,  the  economic 
handicap,  because  the  government  has  done  everything  it 
could  to  prevent  the  economic  development  of  the  country. 
Railroads  can  be  established  only  by  permission  of  the  cen- 
tral government  and  that  permission  can  be  granted  or 
refused  at  will.  The  same  is  true  of  the  establishment  of 
banks.  There  has  been  a  customs  line  between  Austrian 
Poland,  Russian  Poland,  and  German  Poland.6  There  has 
been  no  customs  line  between  Galicia,  the  German  parts  of 
Austria,  and  Hungary.  Consequently,  the  Poles  in  Galicia 
had  to  pay  more  if  they  wanted  to  buy  Polish  products 
coming  from  Warsaw,  than  they  would  for  those  coming, 
for  instance,  from  Vienna  or  Budapest. 

But  the  great  thing  is  that  in  the  last  few  decades  it- 
has  at  least  been  possible  to  found  economic  and  even  poli- 
tical organizations.  These  organizations,  which  had  for- 
merly been  forbidden,  have  changed  the  whole  life  of  the 
country.  There  developed  a  system  of  co-operative  societies 
which  has  brought  to  the  consciousness  of  every  one  the 
fact  that  economic  co-operation  is  one  of  the  ways  to  a  bet- 
ter future  for  Poland.  It  has  also  been  brought  to  the  con- 


s  You  may  address  a  public  official  in  German  and  he  must  replv 
in  the  same  language.  The  language  of  command  in  all  regiments, 
the  "interior"  language  of  the  railroads,  etc.,  is  still  German. 

e  This  is  contrary,  in  a  sense,  to  Art.  xiv  of  the  treaty  of  Vienna, 
which  stipulates  free  circulation  between  the  different  Polish  prov- 
inces of  products  of  the  soil  and  of  industry. 


10 


sciousness  of  every  peasant,  of  every  inhabitant  of  small 
cities,  that  only  by  some  form  of  political  organization  will 
the  Poles  be  able  to  secure  any  rights  whatever.  I  am  not 
able  now  to  tell  you  about  the  way  in  which  those  organ- 
izations have  come  into  existence  and  how  they  now  act, 
but  it  is  a  subject  admittedly  worth  studying.  It  has  been 
studied  very  thoroughly  by  the  Germans.  Men  are  begin- 
ning to  study  it  in  England.  I  hope  very  much  that  some 
people  in  this  country  may  wish  to  study  it,  too. 

Since  this  war  broke  out — I  was  especially  asked  to 
speak  about  the  changes  occasioned  by  the  war — Galicia 
has  been  promised7  autonomy  "so  far  as  is  consistent  with 
the  fact  that  Galicia  forms  part  of"  the  Hapsburg  empire. 
Therefore  the  promise  extends,  not  to  a  union  of  Galicia 
with  the  other  parts  of  Poland,  but  to  autonomy  while 
Galicia  remains  part  of  Austria.  Before  that  proclama- 
tion, by  the  way,  the  Austrian  censor  had  been  cutting 
out  all  references  to  Polish  independence.  I  have  seen  a 
good  many  Polish  papers  coming  from  Austrian  Poland 
and  Russian  Poland  and  in  the  Austrian  papers  all  refer- 
ences to  independence  were  carefully  cut  out.  Just  what 
value  the  promise  has  and  what  is  meant  by  autonomy 
seems  to  remain  a  mystery. 

Now  as  to  Russian  Poland:  As  I  have  mentioned  be- 
fore, Russian  Poland  was  established  in  1815  as^  a  king- 
dom, united  with  Russia  by  the  person  of  the  ruler,  but 
declared  to  be  a  state  by  itself,  with  an  administration  of 
its  own,  and  so  on.8  The  promises  were  broken,  and  there 
ensued  the  Polish  revolution  in  1831,9  which  aroused  a 
great  deal  of  sympathy  throughout  Europe — sympathy 
only.  The  revolution  was  put  down,  with  the  help  of 
Prussia,  and  part  of  the  Polish  privileges  were  taken 


7  In  a  letter  addressed  by  the  late  Emperor  Franz  Joseph  to  the 
Austrian  Prime  Minister. 

s  Treaty  of  Vienna,  June  3,  1815,  Art.  I. 

sAskenazy,  "Poland  and  the  Polish  Bevolution,"  Cambridge 
Modern  History,  x. 


11 

away.  There  came  another  revolution  in  1863.  Again  it 
was  put  down,  thanks  to  the  help  which  Russia  receive^, 
from  Prussia.10  Despite  the  protests  of  the  western  powers, 
France  and  England,  the  rest  of  the  Polish  rights  were 
taken  away.  And  perhaps  I  need  not  remind  you  of  the  old 
stories  which  are  well  known  in  this  country  and  all  over 
Europe,  the  stories  of  Siberia,  stories  of  the  general  who 
was  sent  to  extinguish  the  Polish  revolution,  and  who  sent 
a  telegram,  "Warsaw  is  quiet."  I  need  not  tell  you  how 
people  were  sent  away  for  "colonization,"  that  is,  were 
sent  away,  ordered  to  live  in  some  remote  place,  to  marry 
women  there,  and  never  to  leave  that  place,  never  to  go 
back  to  their  homes.  I  need  not  tell  you  of  all  the  other 
cruelties  which  you  must  have  heard  about. 

Since  1905  there  has  been  a  certain  degree  of  improve- 
ment. We  have  been  at  least  allowed  to  send*  our  children, 
if  we  had  the  money,  to  private  schools  in  which  they  could 
be  taught  in  Polish.  In  1914*  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
war,  the  Poles  had  the  great  satisfaction  of  seeing,  in  the 
Grand  Duke's  proclamation,  a  confession  that  the  partition 
of  Poland  had  been  a  wrong,  that  it  was  the  "living  body 
of  Poland"  that  had  been  torn  in  pieces — those  were  the 
words  actually  used.  It  was  a  satisfaction  to  those  who 
had  been  told  again  and  again  that  the  Polish  question 
was  dead  and  buried.  Satisfaction  is  not  much,  but  still 
there  were  opened  to  us  prospects  of  a  brighter  future. 
Now,  as  the  war  has  gone  on,  more  and  more  promises  have 
been  made.  It  has  been  recognized  throughout  Russia  that 
the  Polish  problem  ought  to  be  considered  very  seriously. 
Whether  to  give  Poland  independence  or  no — that  was  a 
question  to  be  debated;  but  it  has  at  least  been  permitted 
to  debate  it  openly/ in  the  press,  for  instance.  The  liber- 
ation of  Prussian  and  Austrian  Poland  could  not  be  so 
discussed  in  Prussia  or  Austria.11 


10  Die  Politischen  Eeden  des  Filrsten  BismarcTc,  I,  111  ff.,  114  ff . 

11  Since  this  lecture  was  delivered  the  recent  revolution  in  Rus- 
sia has  removed  the  old  chains  from  that  country,  and  it  seems  that 
Poland's  prospects,  too,  will  become  all  the  brighter. 


12 


VPrussia  had  had  assigned  to  her,  in  1815,  at  the  Con- 
.gress  of  Vienna,  a  large  part  of  the  original  Poland.  A 
manifesto  was  issued  by  the  King  of  Prussia.  He  assured 
his  new  subjects  that  they  "need  not  give  up  their  nation- 
ality"; but  the  promise  was  soon  broken.  The  position 
of  the  Poles  grew  worse  and  worse.  Yet  in  1831,  dur- 
ing the  Polish  revolution  against  Russia,  some  Germans  at 
least  could  see  a  romantic  spell  in  Polish  patriotism,  and 
German  poets,  like  Lenau,  sang  the  glory  of  Poland.  In 
1848  the  Poles  were  as  responsible  for,  as  active  in,  the 
general  fight  for  freedom  in  Prussia,  as  any  other  people. 
Soon  Prussia  took  again  upon  herself  the  task  of  doing 
away  with  Polish  aspirations.  Bismarck  inaugurated  a 
policy  of  extermination,  the  gist  of  which  you  will  find  in 
his  political  speeches.  Take  one  of  his  statements  in  1885 : 
"The  creation  of  a  kingdom  of  Poland,  the  tearing  away 
from  Prussia  of  the  Polish-speaking  provinces  is  indeed 
only  possible  after  a  war  unfortunate  for  Prussia."12 

This,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  is  perfectly  true. 

Bismarck  was  pursuing  his  policy  in  1886  when  he  began 
to  use  public  funds,  to  which  Poles  had  also  contributed 
by  their  taxes,  to  send  Germans  to  the  Polish  provinces  as 
colonists.  After  Bismarck's  retreat  there  began' the  perse- 
cution of  Polish  school-children.  In  1902,  for  instance,  in 
Wrzesnia,  some  of  them  were  beaten  until  their  fingers  were 
swollen  for  refusing  to  say  their  prayers  in  German.  There 
came  about  a  ' '  strike ' '  of  Polish  school-children.  The  num- 
ber of  strikers  grew  and  grew  until  it  reached  a  hundred 
thousand.  Cruel  means  were  used  by  the  government  to 
put  down  the  strike.  Then,  in  1908,  a  statute  was  passed 
which  forbade  the  use  in  any  public  meeting,  except  inter- 
national congresses  and  election  meetings,  of  any  language 
but  German.  Exemption  for  twenty  years  was  allowed 
to  those  districts  in  which  the  non-German  population 
has  always  formed  at  least  60  per  cent.  The  exception  did 
not  apply,  therefore,  to  Polish  meetings — in  Westphalia, 

12  Die  Politisclien  Eeden  des  Fiirsten  Bismarck,  xi,  128. 


for  instance,  or  even  in  Polish  districts  in  which  German 
colonization  had  been  artificially  fostered  to  a  considerable 
extent.  Even  this  concession  is  to  last  only  until  1928. 13 

In  the  same  year  a  bill  was  passed  allowing  the  semi- 
official Settlement  Commission  to  expropriate  people  in  the 
Polish  provinces  in  order  to  promote  the  Germanization  of 
those  parts.  Since  that  time  Poles  have  actually  been 
expropriated  in  order  to  give  way  to  German  colonization. 
The  only  weapon  that  could  be  taken  up  against  all  this 
oppression  was,  not  revolution — that  was  impossible,  since 
one  machine  gun  would  have  done  away  with  hundreds  of 
men — but  to  form  economic  and  to  a  limited  extent  political 
organizations.  And  these  have  been  formed,  by  men  such 
as  Father  Wawrzyniak  and  men  of  his  school,  such  as 
Father  Zimmermann,  while  other  men  promoted  self-help 
among  Polish  landowners,  as  the  Polish  patriot^  Marek 
Biedermann.  You  do  not  hear  about  them,  bu^  those 
people  over  in  Europe  who  are  interested  in  the  Polish 
problem  know  very  well  that  the  Poles,  although  they  have 
not  been  talking  very  much  about  themselves,  have  been 
able  to  withstand  all  the  aggression  of  Poland's  enemies. 
We  have  proved  that,  without  foreign  help,  practically  in 
the  teeth  of  Europe,  we  have  been  able  to  maintain  our 
power,  to  withstand  hostile  legislative  action  and  an  organ- 
^ization  even  as  strong  as  is  the  Prussian. 

A  "promise  of  independence"  has  been  recently  ex- 
tended by  Germany.  It  relates  only  to  the  formation  of 
a  state  /'out  of  the  districts 'conquered  from  Russia,"  and 
even  in  this  promise  there  is  the  provision  that  the  "exact 
frontiers  of  the  new  kingdom"  shall  be  outlined  later.14 

Let  me  say  a  word  or  two  about  Polish  intellectual 
activities,  beginning  with  literature  and  art.  More  than 
once  you  may  have  heard  it  said  that,  after  all,  Poland's 
people  are  only  Slavic  barbarians.  Have  we  not  been  told 

is  Vereinsgesetz   (1908),  sec.  12^ 

i*  This  ' '  promise ' '  should  be  read  in  the  light  of  the  statements 
of  Prince  von  Bulow,  cited  above. 


14 


over  and  over  again  that  the  best  thing  the  Poles  could  do 
would  be  to  give  up  their  nationality  as  soon  as  they  could, 
and  assimilate  themselves  with  their  neighbors?  I  should 
not  wish  to  encroach  upon  the  province  of  Professor  Noyes, 
but  I  may  say  that  Polish  literature  was  already  well  de- 
veloped in  the  sixteenth  century — we  call  that  the  Golden 
Age  of  Polish  literature.  For  instance,  I  doubt  very  much 
whether  there  was  at  that  time  in  Germany  a  poet  as  great 
as  the  Polish  poet  Kochanowski.  In  the  seventeenth  cen- 
,tury,  in  the  midst  of  all  the  wars  that  befell  Europe,  we 
find  in  Poland  not  only  a  good  many  writers  on  all  subjects, 
not  only  poets,  but  even  poetesses.  Some  of  their  works 
were,  if  you  take  the  period  into  consideration,  quite  good. 
In  the  eighteenth  century  there  was  a  new  development  of 
Polish  literature,  and  in  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century  we  had  our  three  greatest  poets,  Mickiewicz, 
Krasinski,  and  Slowacki.  Some  of  their  works  have  been 
translated  into  English,  many  more  into  German,  and  I 
understand  that  Professor  Noyes  is  busy  preparing  new 
editions  of  some  of  the  masterpieces.  The  number  of  Polish 
poets  who  have  written  since  then  is  large.  The  books 
of  Monica  Gardner  on  Polish  poets  should  be  studied 
carefully  by  all  those  who  want  to  know  about  Polish 
poetry  and  Polish  feeling.  Modern  Poland  has  a  great 
host  of  first-class  poets  and  novelists.  In  this  country  you 
seem  to  know  more  about  Sienkiewicz  than  about  any  other 
Polish  writer,  but  in  Poland  opinion  is  by  no  means  unani- 
mous, as  to  whether  Sienkiewicz,  who  died  recently,  was 
really  the  best  Polish  writer  of  his  generation.  In  any 
case  we  have  several  other  writers  who,  in  their  respective 
lines,  may  be  considered  at  least  almost  equal  to  him.  Per- 
sonally I  agree  that  he  was  the  greatest  modern  Polish 
novelist  and  one  of  the  greatest  in  the  world. 

As  to  art,  Poland  has  had  several  excellent  painters — I 
may  mention  for  instance  Grottger,  with  his  wonderful 
series,  "Lithuania,"  "War,"  and  so  forth;  also  Siemi- 
radzki  and  Matejko,  whose  pictures  are  well  known  in  the 


15 

capitals  of  our  conquerors.  It  is  perhaps  unnecessary  to 
mention  Polish  music,  especially  the  names^  familiar  to 
most  of  you,  of  Chopin,  Wieniawski,  Paderewski. 

Again,  as  to  learning,  it  may  interest  you  to  know  that 
the  University  of  Cracow,  founded  in  1364,  reorganized  in 
1400,  was,  after  the  Bohemian  University  of  Prague,  the 
oldest  university  of  central  Europe.  All  the  German  uni- 
versities were  created  after  it.  One  of  its  most  brilliant 
students  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century  was  young 
Copernicus,  who  later  on  became  famous  as  astronomer  and 
whose  earliest  teacher  in  astronomy  was  Wojciech  Bru- 
dzewski,  at  that  time  professor  at  Cracow.  In  the  centuries 
following,  the  University  of  Wilno  was  founded  in  1578, 
Zamosc  in  1595,  and  Lwow  in  1661.  I  just  mention  all  this 
to  you  in  order  to  show  that  we  had  some  development 
before  our  neighbors  "took  care"  of  us. 

At  the  outbreak  of  the  present  war  there  were  only  two 
Polish  universities  in  existence,  Cracow  and  Lwow.  I 
should  like  to  tell  you  much  about  them,  but  you  would 
have,  in  any  case,  to  take  my  word  for  it,  so  I  had  better 
just  say  briefly  that  I  think  among  their  faculties  there  is 
a  great  number  of  first-class  scholars  who,  if  they  wished 
to  discard  their  own  language  and  write,  for  instance,  in 
German,  would  long  ago  have  become  famous  all  over  the 
world. 

There  are  many  learned  Poles  outside  of  Poland.  Those 
of  you  who  know  anything  about  chemistry  have  heard  of 
Madame  Curie-Sklodowska,  who  discovered  radium.  She 
named  one  of  the  elements  discovered  by  her,  polonium, 
in  honor  of  her  own  nation,  to  which  she  has  ever  remained 
faithful. 

Many  other  Poles  living  abroad  are  famous  in  different 
fields,  for  instance,  Ostrogorski,  in  political  science;  in 
anthropology  (I  want  to  pay  homage  here  to  a  friend  of 
mine)  Miss  Czaplicka,  a  young  Polish  girl  who  went  some 
three  years  ago  to  northeastern  Siberia  as  the  head  of  an 
expedition  and  later  published  a  very  interesting  and  much- 


16 


appreciated  book  on  the  subject.  She  is  being  greatly 
honored  in  England  and  is  the  first  woman  to  act  as  lec- 
turer in  the  University  of  Oxford. 

As  to  politics,  you  have  probably  heard  a  great  deal 
of  discussion  on  the  vices  of  the  ancient  Poles  and  their 
want  of  organization.  I  have  not  time  now  to  discuss  Polish 
history,  but  as  to  modern  organization  I  will  just  mention 
that  the  Polish  economic  and  political  associations  in  Prus- 
sian Poland,  as  well  as  in  the  other  parts,  have  been  the 
subject  of  much  detailed  study,  research  and — I  am  glad 
to  say — appreciation  on  the  part  of  people  who  are  by  no 
means  friends  of  Poland  and  who  describe  those  things 
only  to  enable  the  Prussian  government  to  fight  the  Poles 
more  fiercely.15  I  may  say  also  that,  so  far  as  statesmanship 
is  concerned,  some  of  the  best  statesmen  in  Austria  in  the 
second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  were  Poles  who  were 
admitted  to  the  Austrian  government.  Several  Austrian 
ministers  of  finance  from  the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  to  the  beginning  of  the  present  war  were  Poles: 
Dunajewski,  Bilinski,  Korytowski,  Zaleski ;  other  Poles  have 
served  as  Austrian  ministers,  e.g.  Goluchowski,  minister  of 
foreign  affairs,  and  Glabinski,  minister  of  railroads,  etc. 

To  sum  up:  If  you  think  of  it,  the  life  of  Poland  is 
very  curious  in  one  respect.  It  is  a  nation  without  a  state. 
In  other  countries  the  government  promotes  national  activ- 
ities. To  Poland  the  governments  are  more  or  less  hostile. 
If  you  want  to  preserve  your  nationality,  you  must  have  an 
organization,  a  national  organization,  which  will  work,  so 
to  speak,  against  the  wishes  of  the  governments.  And  yet, 
despite  all  the  difficulties,  the  Polish  nation  has  been  con- 
stantly developing. 

And  this  leads  us  to  what  I  should  call  the  spirit  of 
Poland.  You  have  heard  a  great  deal  about  nationality,  a 
thing  which  people  are  very  fond,  of  discussing  just  now. 
They  say  sometimes  that  nationality  is,  after  all,  only  the 

is  deinow,  Zukunft  Polens;  Bernhard,  Das  polnische  Gemein- 
wesen  im  preussiclien  Staate;  and  numerous  others. 


17 


result  of  economic  tendencies.  Others  say  that  it  is  in  a 
sen$e  just  a  religion,  that  people  feel  about  nationality  just 
as  they  feel  about  the  principles  of  this  or  that  church. 
From  my  experience,  from  what  I  have  seen,  I  think  that 
neither  one  of  these  views  is  correct.  Polish  patriotism 
shared  by  the  broad  masses,  is  certainly  not  due  to  the 
desire  for  economic  advantages.  Every  Pole  would  be 
much  better  off  economically  if  he  gave  up  his  nationality 
and  consented  to  become  a  German,  for  instance. 

How  many  thousands  of  mothers,  both  rich  and  poor, 
have  taught  their  children  to  read  and  write  Polish  in  a 
most  characteristic  way :  they  would  sit  with  their  knitting 
on  their  knees,  and  a  book  on  their  knitting:  when  the 
police  came — the  hostile  governments  have  done  a  good  deal 
of  searching  after  such  "criminals" — the  knitting  would 
lie  on  the  book  and  the  police  might  not  discover  what  had 
been  happening:  was  that  a  case  of  hunting  after  eco- 
nomic advantages?  Or  was  it  a  question  of  "religious 
nationality"?  No  question  of  superhuman  reward  was 
involved,  people  have  been  doing  and  are  doing  those  things 
only  in  order  to  serve  what  they  love — their  own  country, 
their  fellow  Poles. 

I  have  often  been  told  by  my  mother  how  they  used  to 
go  out  into  the  fields  and  walk  about;  if  there  were  no 
constables  around,  they  would  sing  Polish  patriotic  songs. 
I  do  not  know  if  in  this  country  you  can  appreciate  what 
there  is  in  a  patriotic  song.  I  do  not  know  if  you  can  real- 
ize how  much  inspiration,  how  much  consolation,  one  can 
get  from  a  song.  People  have  been  punished  for  merely 
singing  patriotic  tunes.  There  was,  for  instance,  a  very  in- 
teresting case  in  Prussian  Poland  not  many  years  ago.  An 
organization  had  got  up  a  picnic.  During  the  picnic  a 
certain  song  was  sung.  Thereupon  the  president  of  the 
organization  was  prosecuted.  The  public  prosecutor  ad- 
mitted that  the  words  were  harmless,  but  said  that  the 
melody  was  likely  to  promote  a  breach  of  peace.  The  de- 


18 


fendant  was  convicted.  Yet,  in  spite  of  all  these  prose- 
cutions, of  which  I  can  but  give  you  an  example,  these 
things  can  not  be  stopped.  I  do  not  know  if  you  can 
realize  what  a  Polish  patriotic  celebration  is.  You  listen 
to  speeches,  then  you  hear  songs  when  everyone  gets  up, 
and  you  see  tears  in  the  eyes  of  old  men  and  young  chil- 
dren. I  do  not  know  if  you  can  realize  what  it  means  to 
celebrate  a  national  anniversary  in  a  graveyard,  with 
torches  around  you:  you  hear  one  of  those  thrilling  songs 
which  remind  you  of  your  duty  to  your  country — your  own 
country,  not  your  conquerors' — songs  which  live  in  your 
ears  forever. 

There  is  something  very  interesting  about  the  discipline 
of  the  Polish  people.  For  instance,  after  the  statutes  of 
1908,  which  I  mentioned  to  you,  there  was  organized  in 
Poland  a  boycott  of  Prussian  goods,  of  German  goods  gen- 
erally and  of  Austrian  goods.  There  is  such  a  boycott  at 
present  in  England.  But  there  you  have  courts  which 
punish  you  if  you  contravene  the  Trading  with  the  Enemy 
Acts.  In  Poland  there  were  no  courts  to  convict  you  for 
a  breach  of  the  boycott.  Eather,  you  would  be  convicted 
by  the  conquerors'  courts  for  boycotting  the  Germans. 
And  yet — how  those  boycotting  organizations  developed! 
You  could  see  little  school  girls  going  around  the  cities,  from 
one  shop  to  another,  to  find  out  whether  or  no  the  stores 
were  selling  German  goods,  such  as  German  stationery. 
If  they  were,  the  children  would  ' '  write  to  the  paper  about 
it."  In  Russian  Poland  a  boycott  of  the  University  was 
organized  some  years  ago,  because  the  government  refused 
to  restore  to  the  University  its  Polish  character.  You  could 
find  people  who  would  risk  any  sacrifices,  would  go  abroad, 
would  live  away  from  their  families,  would  lose  their  live- 
lihood perhaps,  would  put  their  own  families  in  danger, 
rather  than  go  through  the  University  which  the  Polish 
youth  had  declared  under  boycott.  In  such  cases  discipline 
is  enforced  simply  by  national  conscience.  A  great  deal  of 


19 


that  is  due  to  the  rcle  of  women.  It  might  interest  you  to 
know  that  Bismarck  considered  Polish  women  especially 
dangerous.  For  instance,  in  1885,  when  there  was  a  discus- 
sion of  the  bill  relating  to  the  Settlement  Commission,  he 
made  a  point  of  stating  that  those  people  who  would  go 
to  the  eastern  provinces  as  German  colonists  were  to  under- 
take not  to  marry  Polish  women,  because  Polish  women 
usually  make  good  Poles  out  of  their  husbands.16 

One  of  the  most  striking  examples  of  Polish  patriotism 
is  the  Society  of  the  Popular  School,  usually  called 
T.  S.  L.  in  Galicia,  founded  some  twenty-five  years  ago. 
It  has  scores  of  thousands  of  members  all  over  the  country, 
maintains  elementary  schools  and  public  libraries  in  in- 
numerable cities  and  villages,  organizes  popular  lectures 
throughout  the  country,  and  even  maintains  some  second- 
ary schools.  The  members'  subscription  is  forty  cents  a 
year.  That  is  not  much  for  you.  But  among  those  mem- 
bers you  find  for  instance  teachers  of  provincial  schools 
whose  whole  salary  amounts  to  some  ten  or  twenty  dollars 
a  month.  Out  of  that,  they  must  pay  for  their  food,  lodg- 
ing, clothing,  and  also  pay  the  subscription  to  the  society, 
for  otherwise  they  would  not  be  allowed  to  co-operate  in 
the  society's  work.  And  yet  somehow  or  other  they  man- 
age to  do  that — and  with  how  much  enthusiasm! 

What  do  the  Poles  want?  The  Poles  want  a  place  in 
the  sun.  But  this  does  not  mean  that  we  want  colonies 
or  the  right  to  exploit  other  people.  We  do  not  want  the 
right  to  say  to  other  people,  ''Get  up  because  I  want  to  sit 
down."  We  only  want  to  have  the  right  to  live  free,  to 
live  as  a  united,  independent  nation,  without  being  com- 
pelled to  serve,  as  so  many  of  our  people  are  compelled  to 
serve  now,  one  against  the  other,  an  Austrian  Pole  against 
a  Eussian  Pole,  a  Russian  Pole  against  his  brother  or  uncle 
in  the  German  army,  all  of  them  serving  for  foreign 
aspirations,  for  foreign  ideals,  for  foreign  policies,  which 

16  Die  politisclien  Eeden  des  Fursten  Bismarck,  xi,  445,  464. 


20 


have  nothing  at  all  to  do  with  Poland.  We  want  to  have 
our  country  to  ourselves,  and  we  want  to  keep  away  from 
other  countries'  struggles  which  do  not  concern  us.  Look 
at  the  present  war  in  Europe.  All  the  fighting  in  the  east- 
ern European  theatre  of  war,  except  in  the  Balkans,  has 
been  on  Polish  soil.  Why  should  our  cities  be  razed  to  the 
ground  ?  Why  should  our  people  be  led  away,  turned  prac- 
tically into  slaves?  We  want  to  be  free,  to  be  left  to  our- 
selves. 

I  shall  close  by  telling  you  of  a  little  banquet  in  which  I 
took  part  some  six  or  seven  years  ago.  Two  of  our  greatest 
professors  were  there.  One  of  them  is  dead  now.  He  was  a 
man  whose  voice  was  heard  throughout  Poland.  He  was  one 
of  those  men  to  whom  you  could  listen  and  listen  and  listen 
and  never  get  tired  of  listening.  There  were  a  few  more 
of  us — four  students.  We  were  discussing  things  Polish, 
discussing  them  in  a  way  that  was  to  remain  an  inspiration 
for  years  and  years.  I  still  remember  a  toast  of  that  great 
man,  Professor  Milewski.  The  Poles,  he  said,  the  modern 
Poles,  resembled  a  band  of  workmen  digging  a  tunnel.  The 
Poles  in  whose  time  we  lost  our  independence,  were  those 
who  first  entered  the  tunnel.  Out  of  light  they  entered  into 
darkness.  Then  the  present  generation,  and  the  few  past 
generations  were  those  people  in  the  tunnel  who  had  not 
seen  the  light  before  they  entered  and  were  not  yet  allowed 
the  privilege  of  seeing  the  end  of  their  work.  Although 
he  himself  would  not  be  able  to  see  light  after  the  work 
was  finished,  he  hoped  that  at  least  we  young  men  who 
were  there  would  see  it,  that  we  would  come  out  of  the 
dark  into  the  light  and  see  a  free  Poland  again. 

Alas!  He  did  not  live  to  see  the  dawn  of  a  better 
future.  But  there  are  signs  now  that  things  may  turn 
that  way.  Some  of  you  may  have  remarked  that  President 
Wilson  said  in  his  famous  speech  a  few  weeks  ago: 

' '  I  take  it  for  granted,  for  instance  . . .  that  statesmen 
everywhere  are  agreed  that  there  should  be  a  united,  inde- 
pendent, and  autonomous  Poland. ..." 


Yes,  a  united  Poland,  and  an  independent  Poland.  It- 
is  for  the  world  as  much  as  for  us  Poles  to  see  to  it  that 
we  may  be  a  generation  of  those  coming  out  of  the  tunnel 
into  the  light. 

NOTE:  The  following  books  and  articles  may  be  useful  for  refer- 
ence: 

Swietochowski,  ' '  Poland  and  her  Role  in  Europe, ' '  Fortnightly 
Review,  1915,  xcvm,  502-512. 

•   Retinger,  * '  Poland  and  the  Present  War, ' '  English  Review,  Dec., 
1914,  xix,  78-84. 

Dennis,  " Immortal  Poland,"  Hibbert  Journal,  Oct.,  1916,  113- 
124. 

•  Poland's  Case  for  Independence  (a  series  of  essays  by  well  quali- 
fied writers),  New  York,  1916. 

Monica  Gardner,  Poland,  A  Study  in  National  Idealism,  London, 
1915. 

Monica  Gardner,  Adam  Mickiewicz,  The  National  Poet  of  Poland, 
New  York,  1911. 

Georg  Brandes,  Poland,  New  York,  1903. 


YC  75782 


3610 

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